FAIRFIELD – Fairfield Mayor Connie Boyer hosted a town hall Monday night at Fairfield City Hall to educate the public about the upcoming vote on the city’s Capital Improvements Reserve Fund (CIRF).

Boyer was joined in the council chambers by Fairfield City Administrator Doug Reinert and Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson, who provided insight about how the city’s CIRF has been used over time and the projects it has funded.

On Nov. 7, Fairfield’s citizens will decide whether to renew the city’s CIRF levy, which is $0.67 per $1,000 of taxable property valuation. Reinert reminded the audience that the state of Iowa only assesses taxes on a portion, a little over half (about 56 percent), of residential property.

Though the CIRF had previously been renewed every 10 years, the city is asking for it to be renewed for another 25 years, meaning it next be renewed in 2048.

Carlson spoke about some of the projects the CIRF has funded in recent memory, such as the new playground structure at O.B. Nelson Park, which replaced the wooden Partners for Play. When Partners for Play started to deteriorate and the city needed to begin searching for a replacement, Carlson said the council members and city staff were all shocked when they were reminded how old it was – almost a quarter century, installed in 1999.

“We should have been putting money away for it for 10 years,” Carlson said.

Carlson said that replacing Partners for Play with another wooden structure would have cost half a million dollars, but the city was able to find a vendor who could build one for $127,000. The new playground structure was installed in early 2023, and the two-story structure covers 2,300 square feet with five slides, four climbers, and is designed for kids aged 2-12.

The CIRF has helped fund the demolition of the former DOT buildings at the corner of North Fourth Street and West Briggs Avenue, which the city purchased a few years ago. Those buildings were demolished earlier this year to make way for a new fire station.

Other projects funded by CIRF include street sealcoats, snowplow equipment at the airport, and the city’s portion of paving 227th Street that leads to the South Business & Industrial Park, where SNF Motorsports just opened a business last year after purchasing Grow Fairfield’s shell building.

Carlson spoke about some of the upcoming projects that the city would like to use CIRF money for if voters approve its renewal in November. These projects include a building for the street department so it can put all its equipment inside, resurfacing the road inside Waterworks Park and the lane to the airport, and resurfacing a couple of the city’s downtown parking lots that Carlson described as currently “gravelesque.” Down the road, the city also hopes to use CIRF to replace downtown traffic signals, which cost $300,000.

Boyer chimed in to say that losing the CIRF would make it difficult for the city to fulfill its obligations, and she is asking residents to vote in favor of its renewal. She addressed concerns about the city’s tax levy, saying that though it does rank in the top 20 percent in Iowa, Fairfield’s ranking is going down over time, meaning its levy is not rising as much as other cities. She also noted that, when looking at the consolidated levy, meaning all of the property taxes a resident pays to the city, county, school and other entities, Fairfield residents’ consolidated levy is lower than surrounding towns such as Ottumwa, Mt. Pleasant and Bloomfield.

Council member Elizabeth Estey approached the microphone to ask if the city could make the CIRF perpetual, or if it needed to have a sunset date. Carlson said that Iowa Code requires a sunset date.

Fairfield resident Margaret Dwyer asked the city officials if they were going to make it clear on the ballot that residents were being asked to renew an existing levy, instead of approving a new tax. Carlson said they would confer with other officials to see about the exact wording of the ballot measure and whether it had already been set.